What do you anticipate would be the most difficult clinical issue facing students in secondary schools today. Why would this be difficult for you, and what steps could you take to address this issue?

There are so many forces and factors at work in the lives of those who populate America's secondary schools, and it is dfficult to state definitively what the most difficult of those might be. Bullying is probably a problem that transcends schools and communities, regardless of location and socioeconomic status; one would like to think that bullying is getting better in America's schools due toincreased awareness, but whether or not that can be proven is debatable.

Further complicating this subject is that the children of a disadvantaged neighborhood will likely experience--and bring to school--issues and problems of a very different nature than the children of a more affluent area. Having worked in an urban-esque school in the recent past, and a fairly affluent school now, I would say that the issue of hunger might be considered a fairly difficult and significant obstacle for schools in areas with fewer advantages. In the schools with more advantages, sometimes the issues have more to do with too many advantages coupled with a lack of adult guidance and boundary setting. For example, a very affluent suburb near here serves a population of kids whose parents are very well off; however, these kids are often unsupervised and/or raised by nannies, have access to a lot of cash, and perhaps not surprisingly, also alcohol and drugs. While an inner city child might be neglected because of poverty (i.e. the child is hungry because the parent(s) cannot buy food), a very affluent teen might be neglected in a very different way, with parents working often and late, or traveling often for business or pleasure. In any case, secondary schools have more than a few challenges to deal with, each as unique as the children who attend the schools.